PROVIDENCE -- Citing a complete breakdown in communications during last week’s snow storm that left children stranded on school buses into the night, Mayor David Cicilline today fired the director of the city’s Emergency Management Agency and suspended the chief of operations for Providence Schools.

Cicilline, at a press conference this afternoon, said the responsibility ultimately lay with him for the series of missteps that stranded hundreds of school children for up to eight hours. He released an eight-page report reviewing the storm, which included a timeline of communications and "action steps" to prevent such a situation again.

He also expressed deep disappointment in the performance of Providence School Supt. Donnie Evans, but said that he will continue to support the superintendent’s efforts to boost student achievement.

“By mid-afternoon it should have been clear that a serious problem with school bus delays was brewing and no red flags were raised,” Cicilline said in a statement. “I expect those with primary responsibility for the transportation of children in our district to be fully engaged in monitoring and supervising the process until the last child is home and to act quickly and seek assistance when problems arise.”

The mayor immediately fired Leo Messier, the city’s director of the EMA, and suspended without pay school operations chief Tomas Hanna for 30 days. Providence Police Maj. Monty Montiero was named acting director of EMA.

Last week, snow falling as fast as 3 inches per hour crippled the roads and highways in the state, trapping commuters and school buses – many of them in Providence – for hours at a time. In all, the city received a little over 6 inches of snow, not much by New England standards.

But by 8 p.m. 60 percent of Providence public school buses filled with elementary school students who had been dismissed early were still stuck in gridlock.

That evening, Messier called the school bus situation “inconvenient.” But he said children “will get home eventually” because they have call phones to call their parents.

Messier becomes the second emergency management official in the state to lose his job this week. On Tuesday, Governor Carcieri fired Robert J. Warren, the director of the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency.

Cicilline’s actions come after receiving the results of a week-long review conducted by Chief of Administration John Simmons and Police Chief Dean Esserman.

Below is the five-step plan described in the press release to deal with the next "extreme weather" conditions:

- The City has modified its Emergency Operations Plan to require the Emergency Operations Cabinet to be automatically activated whenever school children are being transported during extreme weather with dangerous driving conditions.

- First Student Transportation has agreed to establish a communication system that will improve the ability of bus drivers or bus monitors to communicate directly with the bus yard in order to report any difficulties in transportation students.

- The School Superintendent will establish a communication procedure that requires parents to be notified every hour by an automated phone call system when there are substantial delays on school buses.

- The School Superintendent is to establish, immediately, a dedicated hotline to answer parents’ questions regarding their children’s transportation. The hotline will be staffed with sufficient personnel during emergencies so that parents will not be kept on hold for unreasonable periods of time.

- The School Superintendent will reverse the current transportation schedules in weather emergencies to ensure that the youngest and most vulnerable children are transported first.

Tonight, the City Council is holding a special meeting on the same subject. One councilmember had called for Hanna's firing -- a step now taken by the mayor.